My media

Newspapers: The Guardian first, I'm afraid. I read the arts reviews, then the front page and pretty well all the way through. I glance at the Times at home. And I have the Indy and the Standard in the office.

Magazines: The Royal Institute of British Architects' journal, which is terrific for keeping up to date, and is very well produced. And the Tate magazine, which I find a balance between terminally infuriating and modish, and extremely useful for knowing what's going on.

Books: Recently there have been three books by friends. The Places In Between by Rory Stewart - he's my godson and it's his account of walking across Afghanistan in the winter. Quite terrifying. Nina Bawden's Dear Austen, her letter to her husband who was killed in the Potters Bar train crash. Austen was managing director of the BBC World Service before I was, and they're friends, so it has particular resonance. And a book by a friend, Ian Davidson, called Voltaire in Exile - a brilliantly entertaining account of what that naughty man got up to.

TV: Newsnight, Match of the Day, Bremner, Bird and Fortune, and, I say with tongue in cheek, anything by Dan Cruickshank, just to keep the blood pressure up. How Clean Is Your House? is addictive, and I thought The Apprentice was totally brilliant.

Radio: Today programme from 7.30am to 9am. I love Broadcasting House on Sundays because Fi Glover is so cheeky and irreverent, and The Now Show is the best political satire on radio. I'll quite often hear chunks of Sean Rafferty's In Tune on Radio 3.

Ads: I love car ads. I still think Vorsprung Durch Technik is one of the cleverest ads. I loathed the one for 118 118 - it was so ageist and patronising that I swore never to use it.

New media: I'm a bit pathetic really but I am hoping to buy a typewriter on eBay so this could be the start of something great. How's that: use the new media to buy a typewriter?

· John Tusa is managing director of the Barbican. He will give the Royal Academy annual lecture on Wednesday